


The Last Time

by orphan_account



Category: Champions of Red Wine - The New Pornographers (Song)
Genre: Alcohol, Bisexual Female Character, Blind Character, College, Depression, F/F, Female Character of Color, Flashbacks, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Inspired by Music, Lesbian Character, Mental Health Issues, Pregnancy, Recreational Drug Use, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4070641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College was so long ago, years and bottles and hopes and dreams ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eos_3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eos_3/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy this! I took a bit of a darker tone than the song, but it definitely inspired me.

June’s phone buzzes on the night table and startles her out of a deep, foggy sleep.  She fumbles for it and drops it onto the carpet, the fuzzy blue blur skittering beneath the bed.  “Fuck,” she hisses, and Kate huffs out a laugh next to her.

“Put your glasses on, dummy,” she giggles, rolling over to her other side.  She can’t sleep on her back anymore with only six weeks left before the little one arrives.

June grumbles in assent and gropes for the phone.  By the time she unfolds her glasses and slides them on, the call has gone to voicemail, but they didn’t leave a message.  It’s an unknown number.  Right as she removes her glasses, the phone buzzes to life again, and June mashes her thumb onto the answer button.

“What?” she growls, voice husky with sleep.

“ _Junie_?” The voice is deep but tinny, the connection bad.  She hears wind whipping through a car window.

June sits up, wide awake, heart already pounding.  “Aaron?”

Kate makes a startled noise and pops her head up, blonde hair in a messy, confused cloud around her head.

 

(June is immediately brought back to their cinder-block dorm complex—Kate’s _X-Files_ poster over her bed, the smell of Aaron’s Old Spice deodorant. Carlos was dating the girl in 205 who blew her hair dry at 4:30 every morning. June was trying to date Kate and failing.

It was 1999).

 

“ _Yeah, it’s me_ ,” Aaron Harvey says.  “ _Sorry it’s so late.  Carlos gave me your number again_.” June hears the distinct click of a lighter wheel and feels a stab of disappointment—the last time she saw Aaron, he’d been off cigarettes for two years.

 

(The last time they were all together was 2005, their five-year-reunion in the alumni center, surrounded by cheap bottles of red wine and PBR beer cans. It was the sort of refuse that surrounded them during their college years in dorms and then their apartment on College Drive by the river, the five of them never far apart).

 

“No, it’s fine _,_ ” she says, and turns on her bedside lamp.  She glances at Kate apologetically, but Kate is wide awake, struggling to lean up against the headboard with her huge belly.  June gives her a bicep to hold onto and heave herself up.  “Where are you?  What’s wrong?”

“ _I’m just getting into Milroy_ ,” Aaron says.  “ _Junie, is Katie with you_?”

“Yeah,” June says, and turns the phone on speaker.  “She’s right here.”

“Aaron, what the hell is going on?” Kate looks up at June, dark brows knit.

“ _Guys, I’m so fucking sorry, but Lauren’s dead_.”

The bedroom is silent save for the wind crackling through the telephone.  Milroy is always windy this time of year. 

 

(Lauren lay on her back on June’s bed, joint between her lips. It was smeared in plum-colored lipstick, the color striking against Lauren’s dark skin. She won’t give up June’s Hello Kitty pillow, even though June has almost everything else from the apartment packed.

“Carlos got the job,” she said through her teeth, poking June’s bio textbook with her big toe.

June looked up, pierced eyebrow raised. “In Milwaukee?”

“The very one,” Lauren said with a sigh. “Graduation fucking sucks.”

June wanted to tell her she finally asked Kate to move in with her after the ceremony, but figured it wasn’t a good time. “It sucks for all of us, dude. We’ll be fine. We always are.”

“Yeah,” Lauren said, joint bobbing between her lips. She closed her eyes. “We sure are.” She sat up, hair falling into her eyes. “Want to get a drink or something?”

June looked at her closely, trying to see the familiar hollowness in Lauren’s cheeks, the blankness that took over her eyes. She saw nothing. “I should probably study. Why don’t you ask Aaron?”)

 

Kate makes an aborted noise on her throat.  The last time they talked to Lauren, she was coming off an abortion and a shitty boyfriend, her life a natural disaster. She asked Kate to come stay with her for a while, just until she got back on her feet, but Kate found out she was pregnant the day before and _choked_ , she didn’t know what to say, June was always better with Lauren’s bad days and downswings, her low points.

Then Lauren asked Aaron to stay with her instead, and Aaron got mad at June for some reason, and then eight months passed, and apparently nobody could help.

June runs a hand through her hair.  “When?”

“ _Last night_ ,” Aaron says, voice emotionless.

June wants to ask, but Kate says it first because Kate always asks the hard questions. “How?”

“ _River_ ,” Aaron says curtly, voice thick with held-back tears. _“They think…they think she…”_

“Jumped,” June whispers, closing her eyes. “Is Carlos in Milroy?”

Carlos was the one who understood Lauren, the one who laughed at her jokes and cried when she cried, who called the pharmacy and did her laundry when she couldn’t.

But Carlos got overwhelmed too—“I’m not Daredevil,” he used to say, “I can’t sense her sadness, yo”—and there were some things he couldn’t do. He couldn’t drive her to the doctor’s office, couldn’t see the red around her eyes, couldn’t read the angry, self-effacing journal entries she left around her apartment.

June and Kate and Aaron were supposed to do the rest. They were supposed to be a family.

 _“I’m picking him up on the way,”_ Aaron says, trying to hide a sniffle. _“Can you guys get here?”_

June glances at Kate. Aaron has no idea Kate is pregnant, only because they hadn’t even told Carlos, who was their only line of communication. Kate just nods and sits on the edge of the bed, jamming her feet into her purple slippers. “Yeah, we’ll leave now. Where are you staying?”

 _“At the AmericInn,”_ Aaron says. _“I’ll get you a room.”_

June prepares to hang up, but instead, she says, “Why now?” She knows it’s been coming, it’s _always_ been coming. But she and Kate were trying to have a baby, and they just got married the year before when it was legal, and Carlos was going back for his Classics degree, and Aaron’s wife was filing for divorce…

And college was so long ago, years and bottles and hopes and dreams ago.

 _“Who the hell knows,”_ Aaron says, and the line goes dead.

**Author's Note:**

> The character who commits suicide is not the main character. Mental illness and people not understanding how to help them is discussed very frankly, but neither party is held at fault or guilted for their actions.


End file.
